Well we’ve fallen foul of the football world championship, the quarter finals of which take place on the 2nd July, which is the first Friday in July. So by all means come along to the hall on the 2nd and watch the football on the big screen, but if you want to hear some music we’ve postponed the folk club until the second Friday in July, on the 9th. So wrong date but – same time, same place.

and for those of you who missed the May folk club here’s a link to another of John Hurd’s cracking reviews. He’s not only a wonderfully talented wordsmith but also a very good photographer too (anybody who can even make me appear photogenic has to be good!) and what’s more he knows what he is talking about.

Many thanks for those John - it is very much appreciated.(E-mail me your snail-mail address and I’ll send you a new set of guitar strings and an irrevocable invite to sing, play, dance, recite or ramble at the next folk club! )

So the July folk club, the sixth one, belated though it may be, looks like being another good evening. We won’t know by then who are yet to be the world champions in the soccer tournament, but we will know it will be one of only two teams remaining. Most people will probably have watched enough football by then to last them for the next four years. The chances are though that one of them will be Germany. Who was it who said that football was invented by the English so that 22 men could kick a ball around a pitch for ninety minutes in the constant presence of a referee so that in the end Germany could win?

Back to the music, it looks like being another varied and eventful evening -we have several talented floor spots already noted down (including our selfless apolitical piano tuner who has caused great pleasure indirectly to all of us but especially directly to Barry and Günter, our ivory evergreens) and we will be featuring as “special guests” the local group “DerElligh” playing traditional folk music mainly from the Celtic fringes of the British Isles. So my wishes of wanting to hear both a fiddle and a flute in the room seem to have finally been granted and we’ll certainly be looking forward to that, we will!

We will be featuring a wide range of songs during the evening covering, amongst other things, a garden gnome who wears headphones (please don’t forget them Barry!) and eats black cats’ bones and a truly comical misunderstanding between a librarian from Grimsby and a pawn broker’s “trouble and strife” and a fictional ballad from Rudyard Kipling about a heliographer ( that’s an old green form of solar powered “Instant Messaging” very popular in the 19th century) in the Hurrum Hills overlooking the Afghanistan border in 1880 and that’s without all the ace’s that Barry’s got up his sleeve!Always remember : „Folk is great - bier ist gut - and people are crazy!“

So if you want to sing and play, do come early to secure a spot and avoid disappointment, and if you don’t want to sing and/or play, come early too as the ringside seats go the soonest and I’m afraid it’s not possible to do reservations.

If you come really, really, really early ( like a week ) you can perhaps make friends and meet with some disappointed folk clubbers who haven’t received the message or the Gospel yet and watch the soccer quarter finals and have a beer with them sans music- but don’t forget to tell them to come back a week later!